We don't see it. Distracted by the daily slog, we walk right by it; we pass it on the drive home from work. But it's there, teeming from the sidewalk cracks, seething in the stare of a stranger, burbling in the creek out back. And when we do pay attention, we invite those powers to be our doom - or our salvation.

In Six O'Clock House & Other Strange Tales, you'll meet a struggling bartender who swears the frogs outside are calling her name. A greenhouse worker lulled by an unlikely psychopomp. A twenty-something screw-up who turns to his widowed neighbor, and a ghost, for redemption.

Some of these characters deserve rough justice; others, a second chance. Open these pages to curse them, to cheer them, to cry with them at what they've lost or gained. Just be careful... the waters of these stories run deep and the path through is both treacherous and dark.